West Virginia quarterback Garrett Greene (6) gestures to the TCU crowd after West Virginia’s win in an NCAA faculty soccer recreation Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Chris Torres/Star-Telegram through AP)

MORGANTOWN — Let us first give some substance to an announcement Neal Brown uttered on Monday in his post-TCU victory media session.

“I’ve been doing this a long time offensively and this was probably the strangest week I’ve had game planning,” he mentioned of the preparations for what was a vital, although early season, recreation in Fort Worth.

Brown has served as both an offensive coordinator or head coach for the previous 15 years at Troy, Texas Tech, Kentucky and West Virginia.

That represents an entire lot of recreation planning, which includes finding out your individual staff, finding out your opponent, discovering strengths and weaknesses on each side, going by means of the playbook and figuring what method you wish to take, what performs will work, which of them ought to be scrubbed.

It includes creating new performs designed to make the most of mismatches that you just uncover in your research … then placing all of it collectively, passing it on to the staff, working towards all of it week, creating alternate emergency plans after which a sleepless night time questioning what you neglected.

The recreation plan, after all, is all the time based mostly upon what your quarterback can do. Each play begins with the ball in his palms and it comes right down to what he can and can’t do with it, how he reads the protection and the way the protection reads him, to resolve whether or not you may have a profitable recreation plan.

He went into TCU week together with his beginning quarterback, Garrett Greene, nonetheless nursing an injured ankle that had saved him out of a lot of the Pitt recreation and the entire Texas Tech recreation, changed by Nicco Marchiol, who’s much less skilled and likewise left-handed (no offense to left-handers, after all).

The recreation plan trusted whether or not Greene can be prepared, and early within the week it appeared he wouldn’t be.

“Garrett practiced a bit on Tuesday, didn’t practice on Wednesday and I really was planning on going with Nicco because Garrett went out on Tuesday, really wanted to play, but was probably 75%. Nicco was healthy,” Brown mentioned.

“At that point I felt (Greene) could have two-plus weeks to prepare for Houston (who is next Thursday’s opponent after a weekend off). We didn’t even really practice Garrett on Wednesday.”

Most of the set up and exhausting work are achieved on Tuesday and Wednesday and every little thing was on schedule.

“On Wednesday, right at the end of practice, Nicco rolled his ankle. Thursday morning, it was pretty clear that Nicco wasn’t going to be able to go.”

Now Greene, after all, was pushing his personal case to play, not being somebody who can sit nonetheless and watch a soccer recreation on the tv set, not to mention one through which his staff is enjoying.

Ready or not, the sport was Greene’s, a minimum of for as far his ankle would maintain up.

Adjustments needed to be made, with Greene and Marchiol differing not solely of their handiness however in what works finest with them. Thursday is often tuning up what has been put in, type of buffing the ultimate product and Friday a stroll by means of earlier than Saturday’s recreation.

They had a plan that was prepared for Greene, but it surely was not as full as that of Marchiol and, definitely, not repeated time and again on the sector.

Come Saturday, Brown put the ball into Greene’s palms and he merely willed the Mountaineers to victory … and likewise had an unbreakable protection regardless of a pair of accidents to main contributors security Aubrey Burks and linebacker Trey Lathan.

Greene delivered.

“I didn’t think he’d be able to run as well as he did, but the joker is tough,” Brown mentioned. “He’s tough and he’s a winner. He just found a way.”

“I was pressing too hard in the first half,” Greene mentioned this week. “I have to just go out there, let it fly and let my guys make plays for me.”

What he did do within the first half was present Brown sufficient mobility to make issues occur.

“That’s why we did things differently in the second half,” Brown mentioned. “I didn’t call a good game in the first half, but was able to do things differently after watching him in the first half.”

Now be assured it was not a robust efficiency from the offense.

“If we had practiced that game plan all week I’d be really, really critical of how we did,” Brown admitted. “I’m a little more lenient on our guys because we had to switch.”

Greene accomplished solely 10 of 21 passes for 142 yards and no touchdowns, but in addition no interceptions and the best way this staff is shaking down, that is likely to be a very powerful passing column for them. He must be mistake free within the air and supply operating yards on the bottom, as he did because the staff’s main rusher with a TD.

All of this Brown takes as a superb signal.

“We haven’t played our best,” he mentioned. “I really believe our best football is out in front of us.”